Spotting military aircraft

[TTECH]

Hello everyone,

I am new to radarspotting and have a few questions:

- Is it legal to use Mode-S receivers in Belgium?
and
- Is it possible to track all kinds of military aircraft with it?
  I mostly spot military aircraft and so it would be nice to see what's flying around(like F16's and C130's).
  I use Flightradar24 to spot civil aircrafts but it doesn't show any military.

I hope you guys can help me!

Regards,
TTECH

[Smudger98]

Answer 1,
No, Mode S or ADSB wont track any Mil flights or for that matter lots of turbo props DHC8`s or ERJ`s - as far as I know only plane plotter can use MLAT to track Military most of the time.

No doubt one of the regulars will be able to explain a little more..

Hope that helps a little,
Smudger.

[TTECH]

Alright, thanks for the answer.

Does anyone have more information about it?

[Triple7]

Hi TTECH welcome to the forum, I'll have a go at answering your questions but I don't profess to have all of the solutions, but here goes for a start......

Using a mode-S receiver in Belgium, I have no idea on that I'm in the UK, but I guess looking at the coverage on FR24 and on the PlanePlotter (PP) networks, some folk do share their data but you should check for yourself to be sure.

PP will track Mode-S only aircraft using the Multilateration (Mlat) system. It uses a reference ADS-B equipped aircraft (known position) and then analyses the timing of the reception of Mode-S signals at several locations (sharer locations) by triangulation to determine the position of the target. This is incredibly accurate in my experience, as long as you have at least 5 sharers uploading their "raw" data to the PP network.

If there aren't sufficient sharers in your location you might be able to locate the aircraft using PP's "Beamfinder" function which uses the return signals from the aircraft in response to interrogation from radar heads. You need to compile your own file of radar locations and head rotation speeds for this to work, but if Mlat doesn't work it's a great alternative.

I hope that helps you a bit,

Tim

[Bethsalem]

Hi TTECH

I know it's not military, and only a humble O'Leary cattlewagon, but this is how Beamfinder works on PlanePlotter. There is no MLAT in my corner of Spain, so I have to rely on Beamfinder. As Tim says, there might well be a ready made radar.txt file for your area which you can use. The PlanePlotter Yahoo group is an excellent place to get more help and information.

Stephen

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[satcom]

Here's the situation at present over Belgium [ mlats only ]

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[TTECH]

Thanks for the answers everyone!
I still have some questions, but I already have a better idea of it.

My main goal is to see military aircraft at low altitude because most of the times I go spotting to a military air base in my environment.
So it would be nice to see what's possible coming in or what's flying around.
But I think this is a bit of dreaming because:
- I have read that it isn't easy to receive signals of an aircraft below 10000ft
- I don't think there are much radar users in my area(I may be wrong), so it will most likely be the Beamfinder method

I'll start with another question:

- As there fly mainly  military aircraft around here(SF-260, helicopters, F16...), will I be able to see them on radar when they are flying low and how accurate? I have never seen them on something like Flightradar24 before instead here:
http://www.live-military-mode-s.eu/ (Belga Radar)

In case it's possible, I am interested in this system because it would be much easier to know when some nice visitors are going to land/flying over, if it's legal.

Already thanks for the help!

Regards,
TTECH

[Breitling]

Yo can see how many sharers for the PP network are in your zone:

https://www.coaa.co.uk/pp-user-charts.htm

[TTECH]

Thanks.
Looks like there are only two to three sharers are online in Belgium.

[satcom]

,,,,and as regards not seeing mlats below 10,000 feet , that again depends on your local countymen...if there are enough ground station sharers , traffic down to 100 feet or below can be seen.

This image shows UK helicopter traffic at low level.

http://satcomuk.yolasite.com/resources/SHAWhelos.gif

We often see Dutch traffic at low level , but further south , across the border we only have a few sharers.

[TTECH]

Ok so in the worst case... when I am the only receiver in my area, I will need to use the Beamfinder method(mlats won't work)
How accurate is it and what's the minimum altitude it will see and how far? Will it see ALL mil  aircraft in it's coverage?

Regards,
TTECH

[satcom]

Which receiver are you using ?

As regards Mlat ...its a chicken and egg situation.
Five years ago Mlat for the enthusiast didnt exist.It took a small group of us to push the limits and slowly develop a small network across North West England...gradually the network expanded as we recruited more sharers and now we have about 2000 sharers , over 800 of those are involved in supplying data for Mlats.

If you are keen to see low level and mil aircraft , then you need to encourage others , via the aviation groups , to join you and quite quickly a local network will develop.

[satcom]

Forgot to add

At the moment , there are a handful of F16s across the border to your north



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[TTECH]

Thanks for sharing! The F16's should come here..

I don't have a receiver yet. I first want to know if it's possible to do what I  want before making the investment.
I don't think many people that I know will pay for it.
Maybe it's a bit of dreaming right now

Note: I see that FR24 offers a free receiver to sharers, would that work with Planeplotters(, and ofcourse FR24)?
http://www.flightradar24.com/free-ads-b-equipment

[satcom]

You may or may not be considered for  a free FR24 receiver. The offer is an excellent one.

However the receiver supplied is locked to the fR24 network as you would expect , so it will not provide raw data to PlanePlotter , consequently it will not help you in you
quest to see mil a/c

If you are serious about becoming a sharer and helping to expand the PP Mlat network across Belgium , then you could look out for one of the early , used , Kinetic receivers [SBS1] which appear from time to time on the auction sites for under 200 Euros.